To Kill A Heartbeat

This started as an idea in Florent Hadjinazarian’s and Guillaume Deces’s (Dawn Records co-runners along with Fred “Renart” Destres) minds; asking Julien Haguenauer – aka. Heartbeat – by then known solely as a techno DJ in Paris and co-founder of DEMENT3D Records – to come up with an experimental/ ambient piano record.

Knowing this would reasonably turn out to be his first record, Julien took things a bit seriously, and went on a kind of soul-searching, orphic quest; resulting in the sarcastic scenario suggested by the play-on-words references on the different titles here. (french ATMs, bird song melodies, magnetic fields, Harper Lee…)

This putting an end to his “Heartbeat” moniker, he stages his descent into the underworld, and back. And of course, the piano on the cover had to be burning up (again an arson painting by artist Jules Cruveiller – who has also done the paintings and drawing for a couple of the past release on Dawn Records).

Now about the music here, it is made up of a collection of accidents and research that occurred along the way, where multiple genres and influences crash and collide instead of being harmonized and orchestrated. This intention here is to surprise and put the listener off-balance. Most of this material has been created through the treatment of an initial 2-hours piano improvisations recording, done a couple of years ago in DSCRD's studio, on an old, off-tuned piano. Through treatments and effects, sampling, granular synthesis and synth-trigs; long notes and chords become pads or drones, arpeggios become rhythm patterns, and multiple pianos playing together breed phases and counterpoints.

You’ll even come across a very sincere and unapologetic guitar ballad as a closing track, recorded as an impro i a very special moment, and consequently left untouched. Cover art also features pictures of Julien by Quentin Strauss, and label’s co-founder Florent Hadjinazarian’s graphic design. (see that bird trapped in a car radiator?) Florent also signs a music video, shot by night in his hometown in french region “La Drôme”. HBT - To Kill A Heartbeat EP will be released on march 27th 2017, both vinyl and digital, and will be distributed by Chez Emile Records, based in Lyon, France, Dawn’s initial hometown.